*

:

mer were no more than so many row-boats and if, as appears rather probable, the whole army was conveyed in 600 of the largest vessels, even these carried, on an average, somewhat below forty men and five horses. As the army, however, must have consisted of about 20,000 foot, and 3,000 cavalry, it was considerable enough to effect any purpose which superior force could effect, in a country where natural difficulties were more likely than any resistance which the natives could exert to impede effectually such an invader's progress.

The appearance of Cæsar's numerous flotilla, as it stretched across the channel, threw the Britons into such consternation as made them shrink from any attempt to oppose his re-landing on the spot which had witnessed their courageous struggle against his first invasion. Before day-break the next morning he had advanced near twelve miles, and found the Britons collected on a rising ground to oppose his passing a river, probably the Stour. Being defeated here, after little more than a skirmish, they retired to a fastness in the woods, which had been fortified with a stockade. But that was soon carried. The following day the Roman army was already proceeding in search of the retreating Britons, as if pursuit was to be their only toil, and had just caught sight of their rear, when some horsemen, who had been sent in haste from the coast, rode up to Cæsar, and informed him, that a storm had driven his vessels from their anchorage, and that the greater part of them were already wrecked upon the shore.

hearing this, he marched immediately back to the sea-side; and as the only thorough security against the recurrence of similar disasters and still farther losses, he employed his army for ten days in dragging every vessel which was not irrecoverably in

* Before Christ, 54.

SECOND INVASION.

27

jured high up the beach, and there surrounding them with ramparts of earth, within which he left about 4000 men to form a garrison and employ themselves in repairing his shattered fleet.

In the mean while, the terror which so formidable an armament had struck into the Britons as they watched its approach, and the total failure of their first efforts to resist the Roman arms, induced them to forget all previous and ordinary causes of suspicion or fear, and to place themselves under the guidance of Cassibelan, king of the Cassii *, an ambitious chieftain, whose skill and courage had become known in their domestic feuds. The delay occasioned by Cæsar's anxiety to secure his fleet gave Cassibelan time to assume the command offered him by his countrymen, and to collect the warriors of his own and other neighbouring tribes, from Kent to Hampshire. A defeat which Cassibelan experienced, as soon as the Romans again set forward to penetrate the country, deprived him of many of these auxiliaries but it was beneficial to the cause of the Britons, by teaching them to restrain their useless impetuosity, and leading them to the adoption of that harassing species of warfare by which alone a brave, but undisciplined, people can succeed against veteran troops; prowling perpetually about them; seldom seen, unless defending a naturally strong position, or bursting from the concealment of an ambuscade ; but ever on the watch to cut off stragglers, or intercept supplies.

The farther Cæsar advanced the more his difficulties were increased by this kind of opposition, which left him the command of no more ground than his army covered. The cattle were driven off from his line of march, so that no food could be

A British tribe inhabiting parts of Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire, and Hertfordshire; in which latter county traces of their existence are still preserved, in the names of the hamlet of Cashiobury and hundred of Cashio.

procured but by sending out parties of horse to a distance from the main body in search of booty ; and these marauding parties were so carefully watched and boldly attacked, at every favourable opportunity, by the Britons, that Cæsar, afraid of having his cavalry farther weakened, was obliged to relinquish this method of provisioning his army. Amidst these difficulties, however, he proceeded to the banks of the Thames, which even then bore its present name, and crossed it, in the face of the Britons, at a ford in Berkshire. Yet hunger must soon have compelled his army to endeavour to regain the coast; and the pride of Cassibelan appeared about to be gratified by the flight, possibly by the destruction, of the vaunted Roman general. But the chieftain whose prowess and policy had attracted the admiration of the Britons, was not likely to be a good man. When it seemed improbable that any human arm should punish his injustice, Cassibelan had murdered the king of the Trinobantes *, and usurped the rights of his son, who had escaped the like violence by flight. This son was now in Cæsar's camp; and the Trinobantes, as the price of his promised restoration, brought in supplies, for the Roman army, of as much corn as Cæsar chose to require; and to avenge themselves on their oppressors, they informed the Romans that Cassibelan's chief town was not far off, and that numerous herds of cattle had been collected within its rudely fortified enclosure. Thither Cæsar desired to be conducted; forced his way through the woods and morasses, which were its best defence; stormed the town; seized the cattle; and destroyed great numbers of its inhabitants. This heavy loss, and the failure of an attempt made by the Kentish Britons to storm the fortifications which protected Cæsar's ahipping, frightened some chieftains into the deser

*A people inhabiting Essex and Middlesex.

CÆSAR'S DEATH.

29

tion of the common cause, and made Cassibelan willing to come to terms with Cæsar on the spot; by which means the Roman general secured an unmolested return to the shore, from whence he immediately re-embarked his troops to revisit Britain

no more.

Cæsar says, that he arranged the terms of an annual tribute, which our island was thenceforward to pay to Rome; but, as the king of Hertfordshire, though his dominions extended over parts of Bedford and Buckingham, and his name was known and respected in Kent and Sussex, and dreaded in Essex, could have no means of obliging the independent natives of the rest of the kingdom to submit to any disagreeable stipulations which he might make for them; and as neither Cæsar, nor any other Roman writer, have left any record of the nature or the receipt of this tribute, it may reasonably be concluded that, whatever Cassibelan promised, he never intended, and Cæsar never expected, the Roman republic to reap even this fruit from the destruction of human lives and human happiness which this gigantic robber had wantonly occasioned by his invasion. But though Cæsar knew not GoD nor His holy law, the decree had gone forth;Whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: and it was to be executed in the sight of the world on this wilful man-slayer. When he had reached the summit of his hopes, and had said to his soul, Thou hast wealth, and honour, and power, laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry; then was it said in heaven, This day shall thy soul be required of thee. Men as careless as himself about the misery his ambition might have produced among people whom they despised, could not bear his usurped authority over themselves: they rose, and assassinated him in the face of day. Surrounded by nobles once his equals, but now compelled to appear sup

pliants for his favour, he had seated himself, in his pride, near the statue of another ambitious general, formerly his colleague, and the husband of his daughter, but whom he had driven to exile and to death; at the foot of that murdered friend's image Cæsar's expiring body fell.

Upwards of ninety years passed before the Romans again attacked the shores of Britain.

The

In the interval came to pass the most important and wonderful event this earth has ever witnessed. Jesus Christ, He who being in the form of GOD, thought it not robbery to be equal with GOD, had, by an inconceivable condescension, divested himself of the glory which He had with the Father before the world was, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men. universal cessation from war, which accompanied his birth, was a fit announcement of The Prince of Peace. But when the rulers of the Jewish nation proceeded from refusing and insulting to crucify the Son of the most high GOD, though the earth, by its shaking, and the sun hiding his face, seemed to express the horror of nature at this last most awful and mysterious offence committed against Him by whom the worlds were made, the passions and vices of fallen man appeared to break forth with augmented and more audacious violence; as if wickedness could have no more to fear from Him whom it had seen submitting to be reviled, scourged, and suffering the death of a slave and malefactor. And yet that crucified Saviour is the same Lord Jesus who shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not GOD, and that obey not His Gospel. But as, then, the enmity of Satan and the wicked obstinacy and hardened cruelty of man did but bring about the very purpose for which Christ came into the world that by His one oblation of Himself once offered He might make a full, perfcct, and